1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to test and diagnostic equipment used to gather and store performance and maintenance data related to a component.
2. Description of Related Art
An important concern associated with the maintenance of any vehicle is the status of the vehicle's electrical system. As the battery and alternator of a vehicle are essential to the cranking and normal operation of the vehicle, it is important that they are properly and frequently tested, to ensure that they are operating correctly. For this reason, many fleet and vehicle and equipment rental companies perform routine testing and maintenance on both the batteries and alternators of their vehicles. Although a regular maintenance schedule can aid in determining problems with the electrical systems, there are some problems with current maintenance practices.
Specifically, although the fleet and vehicle and equipment rental companies have for many years used test equipment to test the health of batteries, alternators, etc., most documentation concerning the test is in written form and must be later transcribed into an electronic database. As such, there is added time associated with the maintenance procedure for data input, and also, the data is not readily available and suffers from possible user errors in entering the data. Further, the data is not directly linked to the battery or alternator. Instead, the user must determine the ID associated with the battery or alternator, and using the ID, accesses either written notes or a database. Here again, there is time lost in maintenance and also the user may access the wrong information for the battery or alternator.
An additional concern with batteries and alternators is warranty information. Many batteries returned to the manufacturer under warranty are malfunctioning not due to manufacturing defects, but instead, due to misuse and/or improper maintenance or charging of the battery. Further, some warranty claims may be dismissed as user misuse and/or improper maintenance and charging, when in reality there is an actual manufacturing problem with the battery or alternator. This problem could be eliminated if there were convenient records of maintenance and also records kept concerning whether the alternator or battery was properly tested.
An additional problem is many large vehicles, such as trucks, buses, etc. typically have more than one battery on board to start the engine and provide the electrical requirements for the vehicle. For example, the typical over the road Class 8 tractor has three (3) to four (4) Group 31 batteries on board to meet the electrical requirements and demands. A noted problem is that all the batteries look alike, the good, bad and the marginal.
Once a battery problem is noted, typically, the only way to fix the problem is to replace all of the batteries in the electrical system and test the batteries once removed from the vehicle in search for the bad and marginal batteries. This can be costly and time consuming. In addition, many of these conventional test methods individually test each battery, thereby requiring movement of the cables to each battery for testing. This again is time consuming and can damage the posts of the batteries.
Another issue is that once a battery begins to malfunction, it can have a detrimental effect on the other batteries in the system causing them to possibly degrade and fail. As such, if a problem with a battery in a bank of batteries is not identified in a timely manner, additionally batteries may be affected, thereby not only raising cost concerns but also raising environmental concerns associated with disposal of malfunctioning batteries.
Further, because the batteries are removed for testing, the batteries are not tested during the normal operational environment. As temperature, electrical loads, etc. affect the characteristics of the battery or alternator, accurate diagnostics of the battery or alternator cannot be taken.
In light of these concerns, the ability to analyze and test each individual battery on the vehicle without removing the battery cables would be valuable to the Fleets, OEMs, and suppliers. Also, the ability to test and analyze all the batteries during the vehicle's normal operation, such as starting, charging at different temperature conditions would allow users to more accurately identify bad and marginal batteries.
In broader terms, there are also concerns with general maintenance of vehicles. Currently, maintenance personnel must manually inspect maintenance parameters of the vehicle and record their findings. Significant time is spent accessing dip sticks for oil and transmission fluid level, viewing of coolant levels, removal of caps and other covers for measurement of the brake fluid, etc, and assessing brake lines, brake slack adjustment, etc. Again, there may also be errors by maintenance personnel in reading and recording these parameters.